


Gods and Wars

by Elleh



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, HQ!! Ghibli Zine, Hanamaki as Mononoke, M/M, Matsukawa's more or less Ashitaka, Oikawa as Eboshi, Princess Mononoke AU, but let's be real this is a suuuuper freeform of mononoke, the wolves are foxes here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 17:52:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11109780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleh/pseuds/Elleh
Summary: The Fox Prince hung from Issei’s arms like a dead body.“Look what you’ve done,” he said, as calmly as he could. “You could have waited and you could have let me talk; but instead of thinking, you just put your weapon out and shot away your reasoning.”“He’s dangerous! He was gonna burn our village down!”“And have you ever wondered why?!” Issei yelled back. “Look at what you’ve built! You ran away because the village that gave you birth hated you! Shouldn’t you know better than anyone else?”“He’s dangerous,” Iwaizumi repeated, a step to the side, the reason he couldn’t think about anything else than protection half hidden behind him. Oikawa Tooru had grown into Issei’s heart the same way Iwaizumi Hajime had, but Oikawa was extremely stubborn, the same way he was too important for anyone around him to think outside their instilled beliefs.





	Gods and Wars

**Author's Note:**

> I finally decided to upload this here! My piece for the HQ!! Ghibli Zine (you can check all the amazing works —art and fic— right [here](https://hq-ghibli-zine.tumblr.com/)). For this piece, I collaborated with the amazing [Taffy](http://taffydesu.tumblr.com/), who draw [this beautiful](http://taffydesu.tumblr.com/post/161155989994/my-piece-for-the-now-hq-ghibli-zine-in) cover for the fic. 
> 
> As it is, the piece stays as a one-shot, but to be honest, I've been working on turning it into a long fic since we started developing it. For now, it's kind of in a stand by, for I'm destroying my mind trying to figure out how humans and gods work (seriously, godlike neutrality's gonna be the death of me), but well. I've come to love this au a lot, so there's the possibility it will become something longer on the future.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it! And don't forget to check the amazing works of all the other participants!

What had brought this moment to reality was nothing else than the inanity of human memory. Issei was not one to judge, but when he saw the blood on that cheek and when the growl of pain that crossed his chest blew his thoughts away, he couldn’t avoid the shot of rage that crossed him, head to toes. They were blind and deaf, horses with blinkers, too used to the reality they’ve made up as to change what was, obviously, not working for anyone. It didn’t matter if the blood they shed was sacred, or if the wood they burnt was holy, and it would never matter that the land they were taking away was stolen. 

They thought themselves gods in a land of war and they didn’t even know in what war they were fighting anymore.

Issei breathed in and out, the world around him stuck in the second the bullet had hit the savage boy up in the rooftop of the factory. Time was not a thing anymore, because rage could control even what was uncontrollable. Issei’s chest throbbed with the beats of his heart, bum, bubum, bumbumbum. He felt rage turning into white light, a burning feeling crossing his chest and his back and his arms. Issei had spent three months controlling his emotions with iron restrain, but when the boy started to fall, unconscious, and when Issei heard the sound of the rifle being loaded again, there was no reason to control anything anymore. 

Issei’s body moved on its own, the human mind forgotten. He became the rage of the forest, the sorrow of the mother fox howling on the distance, his spirits’ friends up in the north, who cried blood for the loss humans had been putting them through for decades. Issei was human but he was something else as well: a portal, a bridge between what was right and what was wrong.

There was no rightness in the way the boy fell. There was no rightness in the twisted justice gods and humans were displaying to one another.

No one saw him move, because rage didn’t care about time or logic. When Matsukawa Issei, with his curse and his fucked up emotions, took a step forward and saved what everyone else thought the devil incarnated, he lost the final vail he had worked so hard to rise. 

The savage boy fell into Issei’s arms with a soft sound.

“Matsukawa—. What the fuck are you doing,” the movement of the rifle caressed Issei’s back, but even when the click of the weapon pierced through his ears, Issei didn’t turn around, nor did he face a man who had become his friend in the last month. “I asked you a question, damn it! What the fuck are you doing?!”

“Being rational!” the cry silenced even the animals on the forest, no fox’s howls to be heard. Issei was still facing the factory’s wall, an unconscious prince on his arms, and the weight of two wars upon his shoulders. He was so enraged he couldn’t stop trembling. “You build weapons and you load weapons and you shoot weapons, but when do you stop and think about the consequences of your actions? I told you! I told you: let’s stop and talk about this. But you are deaf! And blind! You don’t care about anything!”

Iwaizumi inhaled soundly and Issei’s heart knew what a low blow it had been, those mean words. He felt the rifle doubt on its target and he turned around, to face a town full of villagers he had grown to love, the face of two men he had grown to respect and the General he had sworn to obey. 

The Fox Prince hung from Issei’s arms like a dead body.

“Look what you’ve done,” he said, as calmly as he could. “You could have waited and you could have let me talk; but instead of thinking, you just put your weapon out and shot away your reasoning.”

“He’s dangerous! He was gonna burn our village down!”

“And have you ever wondered why?!” Issei yelled back. “Look at what you’ve built! You ran away because the village that gave you birth hated you! Shouldn’t you know better than anyone else?”

“He’s dangerous,” Iwaizumi repeated, a step to the side, the reason he couldn’t think about anything else than protection half hidden behind him. Oikawa Tooru had grown into Issei’s heart the same way Iwaizumi Hajime had, but Oikawa was extremely stubborn, the same way he was too important for anyone around him to think outside their instilled beliefs.

“We trusted you with our treasure, Matsukawa,” Oikawa’s voice was calm and cold, a bullet on its own. “We let you in and not only did you work for fucking Ushiwaka, but now you go and save what has been trying to kill us for years. What do you want?”

Issei felt pain and anger mix inside his chest and he knew, he knew the damned curse was not hidden anymore. When everyone around him gasped, Issei had to accept the fact that he was now the outsider he had tried to avoid being for these last months. 

“You are a demon,” Oikawa spit out.

The word did a weird thing to Issei’s insides. It felt worse than a knife wound, worse than the curse when he got condemned to it. It was just a word, but it expressed all of Issei’s inner fears, and it hurt.

“No, I am not.” he managed to say, the raged voice forgotten on that wound Oikawa had just inflicted. “My name is Matsukawa Issei and I come from a place where we worship the gods of the forest. This?” he pointed at the feathers on his arms. “It’s your fault. You’ve been killing this forest for almost a decade, you’ve been killing spirits and gods, destroying sacred land over and over, forgetting to respect, forgetting to honour what has never been yours. This curse—this curse that’s gonna kill me soon, it’s your damn fault! You are selfish! You built yourself a fortress and called it a village! And then proceeded to destroy every piece of magic around you, just to justify its existence! So, no, Oikawa, I’m not a fucking demon. You are.”

Iwaizumi’s rifle didn’t miss a beat. The next second, Issei’s eyes were face to face with the barrel of the weapon. 

“You betrayed us,” Iwaizumi stated, and Issei’s human heart lost a bit of its strength at the truth of his words.

“I betrayed Ivy Village,” Issei accepted. “But you’ve betrayed everything else.”

“Get out of here,” Iwaizumi’s voice could be venom for all the damage he was doing to Issei’s soul. He never thought he would end up building bonds with people when he left home. There had never been a friend in his plans, and now not only had he made friends, but he had killed them as well. He was, indeed, cursed, just like Bokuto and Kuroo had wanted him to be. 

“I hope some day you will understand why I had to do this,” Issei said in the exact moment the Fox Prince came back to life. 

The second their eyes met Issei’s mind lost the track of everything else. They were as red and brown as he remembered them, rage and magic and fury and spirits, a human from a magic world, a miracle. He was beautiful, but when Issei got himself lost in the depths of those eyes, he saw a beauty even bigger than the one before:

Hope. 

Issei had forgotten how hope looked like, and when hope looked back at him, there was a blank space that took over Issei’s mind and body. 

The curse’s expression flew off and the Fox Prince hit Issei hard on the chin, making him dizzy for a precious second. Before Issei could held him tight, the Fox Prince jumped directly to Oikawa’s throat and Issei’s mind saw what was about to happen with such clarity his heart literally stopped for a beat. 

Iwaizumi didn’t shoot his weapon because Oikawa threw him out of the way. Issei had the impression Iwaizumi wouldn’t have used the rifle anyway, but he couldn’t give it much thought because Oikawa was now facing the Fox Prince, sword in hand, a sharp smile on his lips. 

“This is what you want, isn’t it, savage boy,” Oikawa’s smile grew wider and dangerous. Issei saw such brutality in that simple gesture he realised he didn’t know Oikawa at all. “To jeopardize this people safety, to kill us, murder us.”

The Fox Prince had no time for words, but too many hands for too many weapons. It was stupid, a battle that was so far away from war it couldn’t even be pictured inside of it. This was insane and before Oikawa could reach forward and kill the boy, Issei hit them both with his inhuman arms. Oikawa didn’t fall unconscious, although he ended up on his knees, coughing blood. The Fox Prince went back to Issei’s arms, and Issei regretted the dead weight of the body as much as all the actions he had had to take to reach this exact moment. 

“I’m gonna take him away,” he announced, his eyes glued to the boy’s sleeping expression. “I won’t bother you anymore, and If I have business with you I will come again. Unarmed.”

“You are a weapon,” Tendou said then, breaking a silence filled with fear. None of Ushijima’s unit had said anything up until this moment, and Issei knew they felt more betrayed than what Oikawa and Iwaizumi thought themselves to be. The army was a brotherhood, and Issei had thrown that vow to the fire without a single doubt. “You little piece of shit. I knew you were trouble the second you came in,” Issei wanted to apologize but his words had no place in none of these men’s hearts.

Issei held the fox boy tighter to his chest and started walking, silent steps that felt as heavy as the curse he carried. The villagers opened a path for him, the factories buzzing around, the sound of progress too loud for humans to hear the cry for help of the nearby gods. 

Issei could hear them, though, inside his soul, on the howl’s form the foxes crying for their cub’s life, on the cracking trees burning inside those huge factories. Issei felt them like a knife going through his insides over and over again, and because he knew, he now had the duty to finish it all, to save them all. 

Issei was almost through the village’s doors when the gun’s sound pierced the deadly silence. He barely felt the pain when he realised the bullet had crossed him back to chest, opening a hole just besides his cursed mark. The Fox Prince was still unconscious on his arms, his face dirtied with Issei’s blood. 

“Tendou, what are you—“

“A traitor to the country has to be put down!”

“Are you insane? I did not order you to shoot,” Ushijima said, as composed as he usually was. Issei kept walking, not minding the loss of blood that was clouding his mind.

He felt Iwaizumi take a step towards him and he also felt Oikawa’s hand stopping him from doing so. He felt the villagers gazes on him, on the blood that was leaving a track on every step he took. Issei felt their need to help, the struggle to fight their true emotions with what they thought was right. 

But he kept walking, because the village was not important anymore. The Fox Prince was important, because miracles had to be protected when none else believed in them. 

So Issei kept walking. 

Until he couldn’t walk anymore. 

 

Death felt like home, Issei realised. It was green and soft, the magic caressing his skin the way Bokuto’s and Kuroo’s wing did sometimes. He felt safe, back in that mountain he missed so much. The sun, the birds, the water flowing, knowing he didn’t have to sacrifice anything else anymore, because he already had. There was nothing left of Matsukawa Issei, and he sighed, relieved. 

“What do you think you’re doing,” a familiar voice said beside him. Issei grimaced, trying to keep his eyes shut as long as he could. “Issei~. I’m talking to you. You shouldn’t be here.”

“I did what you sent me south to do.”

“They are still killing gods and I don’t see any war being stopped.”

Issei sighed and opened his eyes, meeting Bokuto’s and Kuroo’s sharp forms. “I’m dead. There’s nothing else I can do.”

“You are more stupid than I thought if you believe that to be true,” Kuroo mocked him and Issei had to take his gaze away, the memory of this winged god and his rage still too painful to face. “You have a duty, Issei, and you accepted it openly.”

“Because you guilt-tripped me into it,” Issei accused him, loyalty and betrayal mixing themselves inside his dead soul in a dangerous cocktail. “I thought we were friends but you knowingly sent me south to die.”

“You knowingly let your kind kill us for as long as you lived, even when you claim to love us,” Kuroo pushed back and Issei knew he was right the same way Issei was.

 _There’s no way to win this fight because we are both right and both wrong_ , Issei realised, but either way, that didn’t change the fact he was still here and he was still dead. 

“He’s not gonna let you die yet, Issei,” Bokuto warned him with a soft smile. 

“Who?”

“You know who,” both of them replied and Issei knew, because he always knew, damn it. 

The forest was gone the next second, the warmth of the sun forgotten, the valleys of home still far away up north. There was cold earth behind his back and a fire on his front when he came back to life. 

He felt like dying, but he knew he was not that lucky. 

Issei tried to breath in deeply, fighting a death he wanted so badly he was even scared of himself, and a sharp edge found his Adam’s apple on the way. Issei’s loss of blood had taken all his heat and he was trembling uncontrollably. The knife stone cut through his skin without even trying.

“Who are you,” Issei heard someone growl and he fought, he fought to get away from death’s grip and come back, to see that voice, to cherish that voice, to touch that voice. He inhaled and tried again, and again the knife found his skin and more of his blood got lost on the night and into that magic ground, into that sacred forest. “Why did you save me, huh?”

“Takahiro, just kill him,” that other voice was heavier and it hurt Issei in some instinct and forgotten part inside himself. He tried to open his eyes, and again he failed. 

“Why did you save me?!” It was rushed and anguished, and Issei wanted to take that voice and put it in a jar. “You should have let me kill them all and for that, you will die.”

Issei opened his eyes to that promise. Hope was a strange thing when it was looking back at you with the rage of revenge. 

“You are beautiful,” Issei coughed, half here half in the other world, but there was power in his words, because even being half dead they were the truest thing he had felt in a long while. He meant to say so much more; explain the beauty of his existence, the meaning Issei thought to understand when he gazed at him, fate and destiny and sorrow and wars. Issei wanted to tell him all the truths that were hidden on that statement, but there was no strength anymore to convey all those thoughts he wanted to share so badly. And so the Fox Prince stood there, a knife against Issei’s throat, and watched him faint away, with the simplest of compliments still ringing in his ears. 

It was hard for a miracle to face truth and honesty. It was even harder for a miracle built for war and fighting to totally accept such a weird truth. The Fox Prince stood above Issei, watching him go deep into feverish unconsciousness, and blushed red as the sky at sunset. 

Miracles didn’t know what to do with simple truths, so the Fox Prince didn’t kill Issei. He took his knife away and he forced his breathing to even. He took one of his brothers and put the dead man on his back without a word, and when the foxes complained about the weirdness of his actions, the Fox Prince said nothing, because his words had died the same way Issei seemed to. 

When Hanamaki Takahiro took a dead man and carried his weight across sacred land, the world shifted. It was imperceptible, a change of light in the night sky. No one noticed, because the only one who could see the truth was still bleeding out, and the miracle who had made it possible was unable to see anything beyond his own beliefs. 

But the world changed that night. 

Because a soldier of humanity decided to save a holy life. 

And an angry soldier of the gods returned the favour.


End file.
